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Amazon imposes limit on reviews

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Re: Amazon imposes limit on reviews

#31

Post by pragmaddux »

kdamken wrote: post #27
ruddct wrote: post #2

Great, but doesn't come close to solving the actual problem: Amazon's retail catalog is flooded with fakes, drop shippers, bots and low quality products with fake reviews. I almost entirely avoid using them for purchasing home goods at this point, the risk is too great and the customer service is too poor. For things that Amazon itself sells, the cost is often not competitive. For everything else, I can get it cheape…

I can't stand the "incentivized" reviews, and found this chrome plugin to be really helpful, it basically goes through and tries to remove the fake reviews for you and give you a new, more correct score without them - https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/reviewmetacom-revi...

This is rather helpful. When I was looking for a cheap carry-on duffel with particular dimensions a few months ago, most items had ~10 incentivized reviews, and nothing genuine. You almost start looking for 4-star products, just because the reviews may actually be legitimate.

Re: Amazon imposes limit on reviews

#32

Post by tedmiston »

> In a bid to put a stop to false feedback, people can now write only five reviews a week of items not bought via the online store.

> Users can still review as many items as they like if the goods are purchased via the website.

"High end" fake reviewers also get reimbursed for buying the product via Amazon so that they are considered a verified purchase.

Re: Amazon imposes limit on reviews

#33

Post by xt00 »

ruddct wrote: post #2

Great, but doesn't come close to solving the actual problem: Amazon's retail catalog is flooded with fakes, drop shippers, bots and low quality products with fake reviews. I almost entirely avoid using them for purchasing home goods at this point, the risk is too great and the customer service is too poor. For things that Amazon itself sells, the cost is often not competitive. For everything else, I can get it cheape…

Any particular example of a problem you had with products that you could point to? It's fairly easy to link to a particular "home good" that you had problems with. I use Amazon all the time for virtually everything and have had practically zero problems over the past 5 years.

Re: Amazon imposes limit on reviews

#35

Post by xt00 »

I hope this cuts down on negative reviews from obvious competitors too. I've seen that a lot on products where the product literally shows up on Amazon (a product I am selling) then within 12 hours has like 3-4 1 star reviews from non purchasing people. Obviously it hit some keyword they are searching for and then they go in and spam it. This is one of the reasons people are so crazy about trying to figure out how to get paid reviews and whatever because you very very often get spammers who work for a competitor who are trying to lower your rank to help themselves.

Re: Amazon imposes limit on reviews

#36

Post by FireBeyond »

patejam wrote: post #5
ruddct wrote: post #2

Great, but doesn't come close to solving the actual problem: Amazon's retail catalog is flooded with fakes, drop shippers, bots and low quality products with fake reviews. I almost entirely avoid using them for purchasing home goods at this point, the risk is too great and the customer service is too poor. For things that Amazon itself sells, the cost is often not competitive. For everything else, I can get it cheape…

I haven't had this experience at all. Prime ships in two days almost always. Same day prime does was it says. I've had refunds without having to ship back products, and when I did have to ship back a product (shoes) I got the refund right away and free return shipping like they advertised. I'm also in a major US metro area. Prices don't seem too bad. My latest purchase was head and shoulders. Looked up the price at W…

I have. Many items are "Prime (ships in 3-5 days)". Seemingly at random, be they big or small (I usually shop more in the electronics and household sector).

I also live ~15mi from an Amazon distribution center, and ~50 miles from a second.

Re: Amazon imposes limit on reviews

#37

Post by gdulli »

sesteel wrote: post #25

IMO, Amazon should consider hiring a team of professional reviewers to generate curated reviews for select products. I understand they couldn't/wouldn't review everything, but given the stakes of public perception, it appears it might be a good investment.

That's a big conflict of interests and Amazon can't be trusted with it. The last thing I want is Amazon reviewing Hachette books instead of real readers. There are likely few categories where Amazon couldn't find a way to "optimize" profit based on the success or failure of certain products.

Re: Amazon imposes limit on reviews

#38

Post by tedmiston »

phyzome wrote: post #13
ruddct wrote: post #2

Great, but doesn't come close to solving the actual problem: Amazon's retail catalog is flooded with fakes, drop shippers, bots and low quality products with fake reviews. I almost entirely avoid using them for purchasing home goods at this point, the risk is too great and the customer service is too poor. For things that Amazon itself sells, the cost is often not competitive. For everything else, I can get it cheape…

My biggest gripe is that they merge the reviews of different vendors of the same product, so for heavily-scammed items like laptop batteries, the reviews are almost useless.

I've experienced this problem as well. I really wish a customer review of an Amazon purchase were tied to a particular seller.

For example, I was recently looking at a Hario Buono kettle [1] to make coffee. There are two versions of it, one made in Japan and one made in China. Unfortunately they share the same model number. The Japanese version is considered better quality.

Of course Amazon has the lowest price compared to specialty coffee retailers, but since they don't differentiate between the two origins, it's a gamble. Different third party sellers stock one version or the other. You can see in the reviews that people have received both. Without the reviews being tied to a particular seller, it's hard to say what you'll get, so I'll end up buying from somewhere else instead.

[1]: https://www.amazon.com/Hario-VKB-120HSVV60-Buono-Pouring-Ket...

Re: Amazon imposes limit on reviews

#39

Post by FireBeyond »

ben1040 wrote: post #17
5555624 wrote: post #12

It does not address my latest issue with reviews -- the reviews don't apply to the actual item in question. Looking for a copy of "Don Quixote," the first 5-star review discussed two different translators -- neither of which was the translator for the edition in question. Most of he reviews were for other translations of the book. This is not limited to books, either, as every now and then I see a review for a differ…

That or customers write reviews for things like the way the product was packed, or the shipping method that brought the product to their door. Not only does it not have to do with the product, but same SKU is often sold by multiple sellers. So your packing/shipping experience will differ depending upon whether you bought it "sold by Amazon," "sold by $COMPANY and fulfilled by Amazon," or "sold and shipped by $COMPANY…

Right, I really wish when you clicked "Write a review" Amazon would explicitly ask: "Is this review about the product or its packaging / delivery to you?" and that the latter would then leave the review with the seller, not the product.

Re: Amazon imposes limit on reviews

#40

Post by tedmiston »

gdulli wrote: post #21
strictnein wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Interesting that this doesn't apply to books. Is that market just vastly different?" Maybe people don't return books when they aren't happy with them? They don't care about fake book reviews anyways. I noticed a "Top 100" book reviewer was just writing the same exact review for every book they reviewed. Reported that and just got their standard "We're sorry you didn't like the review" response.

I was really pissed once when I got a Steve Alten book, it was terrible, then when I looked at the glowing 5-star reviews they were transparently written by him or a delegate. I've never returned a book before, but that time I wanted to do it out of principle.

I sort by Top Critical and read those reviews instead.

It seems to work pretty well to answer the question "Is this book not worth buying?" Or, if I'm not in a rush to read it, I just check out the book from the library first instead, then buy it only if I really really like it.

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